Naysayers among the relatives and neighbors against girls playing football were still there!
There were also close ones who stood beside the girls against the odds. Alongside parents and college teacher, support also came from the indigenous community, pharmacy and department shop owners.
Together they harnessed a football team for girls on a remote land who rose from grass-roots en route to grand success.
Most Bangladeshi families usually do not raise their children with only sports in mind.
And those who do, cricket comes to the forefront before football. Hence the parents took their time before eventually allowing their daughters to play football.
The old-school Muslim families are largely culpable in this fiasco of putting restrictions on girls.
The Rangatungi girls too had to face this - still a common sight in many places of the country - before wearing football boots for the first time, but their emergence in the game was quite unusual.
The voluntary involvement of common people, like a silent movement, paved the way for the girls to become the nation’s new sports figures.
The inaugural edition of the nationwide primary school football tournament for girls was held 13 years ago.
Many youth and senior national female booters had their first football lessons in this competition.
Rangatungi girls though do not fall in this category.
After as many as 18 female footballers from Rangatungi received call from Bangladesh Football Federation Elite Women’s Academy, inarguably the country’s best football academy that nurtures only national players, this reporter visited the site following a half-day train journey to find out more about this wondrous project.
The village is located in Ranisankail of Thakurgaon district near the Bangladesh-India border.
No name of a celebrated past athlete from here came up in memory or interviews.
From a book by a renowned scholar, it was learnt that Ranisankail was a prosperous city around a thousand years ago. Relics of a number of ruined forts, buildings and sculptures were discovered here during the last century.
Archeologist and historian AKM Zakaria, who was also Bangladesh’s first sports secretary in the early 1970s, mentioned those old places in “Archaeological Sites of Bangladesh” to provide testimony of its rich antiquity.
At the end of the colonial era when India and Pakistan got independence from British Empire, the area fell on the borders far away from the provincial headquarter.
For five decades since independence, be it male or female, nobody from this part of the country was able to attract widespread limelight like Mosammat Sagorika, who netted four stunning goals, including a stoppage-time equalizer in the 2024 South Asian Football Federation Under-17 Women’s Championship final against arch-rivals India. She was adjudged the best player of the tournament.
How a teenaged girl like Sagorika overcame the resistance of her parents and also the taboo that girls should not play to become an overnight national football star was the talk of the town for a few days.
Tajul Islam, the man responsible for bringing the Rangatungi football girls under one umbrella, showed the way to the people of Ranisankail Bazar whose roles were also vital in running the team long-term.
“This is where 80% of the boots, jerseys and equipment for the academy are bought,” he said, pointing at a sports shop in the middle of the marketplace.
The shop was crowded by school-going girls. The proprietor of the shop is a middle-aged man named Biplob Kumar Basak.
“I feel proud that the girls bought goods from my shop to play football and got chances in the Bangladesh team. They brought a kind of rare reputation to the whole village,” said Biplob.
The responsibility for medicine was taken care of by a pharmacy shop nearby.
An all-smiling shopkeeper showed the lists of the names of footballers, including Sagorika, and the money owed. He said medicine for any family member of the Rangatungi footballers are sometimes served in the name of the academy as almost all girls come from low-income households.
Adjoining the pharmacy shop sits a village doctor in a small chamber. His name is Tapas Kumar Basak.
He is from the Hindu community, the country’s second-largest religious group after Islam. His younger brother runs the pharmacy.
Rangatungi footballers take health advice from Tapas for free. The brothers are proud of the girls. It was all over their faces.
“The players came to me for treatment without any hesitation. Their problems are mainly wounds and injuries. Their parents and siblings also approached me for free treatment,” said Tapas at his chamber.
“After my prescription, they took medicine from the pharmacy. Chacha (Tajul) pays the dues of medicine later. I try my best to cooperate. I do it for free as much as possible,” he added.
In the absence of a sponsor, the money required every month to run the team was arranged by some dedicated sports-loving persons like Biplob, Tapas and Tajul who have been looking after the financial matters since day one. Funds were managed from various sources.
An NGO titled Eco-Social Development Organization provided funds to build a tin-shed one-storey house for the academy while the District Commissioner offered a lump sum allocation for a three-room space which was made into an office and dressing room.
The name of the team was also an interesting pick.
The word “Rangatungi” originated from the name of a village, at the conjunction of two unions, which is not in the official record book but still used by locals.
When this women’s football project got underway there were mostly indigenous girls from a poor tribal group in the first batch.
Seeing them in all their enthusiasm at the football ground and with notable support from many sectors of the society, guardians from the ethnic majority could not stop their daughters for long.
The likes of Sagorika and Sapna followed this social phenomenon to become the poster girls of the village.
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Part 2: The key man and the hurdles
Part 3: The rise of indigenous sisters from poverty